Introduction: Earth 2024
“How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold.”
- JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 1948
ᛏᛁᛗᛖ ᛊᛟᚢᛚ ᛈᛟᚹᛖᚱ ᛗᛁᚾᛞ ᚱᛖᚨᛚᛁᛏᛁ ᛊᛈᚨᚲᛖ
There were less of them now. Only four. A secret little gathering filled with sorrow and motivated by duty. Over a decade earlier, there had been more of them. Close-knit. An almost family. Filled with hope and motivated by a dream to make their world a better place. But time, so it was said, was a fickle mistress. She offered hope but exacted a cruel, awful price. Time had whittled down their numbers and left them broken. Their victory, if such a hollow outcome could still be classified under that term, had delivered them here, to this forest by the Hudson River, not far from the ruins of the Avenger facility in Upstate New York.
Steve was staring into the past. The Infinity Stones were secure in the padded recesses of the briefcase he held, while Mjolner was clasped in his other hand. Physically, these were no real burden at all, not to someone like him, but the weight of what they represented dragged heavily upon his soul. It was their role in history, the cost to those who had acquired them, made sure they were where they had been needed… Use them… That took a toll.
Sam was fussing about, making last minute checks and talking at him. Steve was only half listening. Bucky stood nearby, his arms folded, watching from under a long, dark, hanging fringe of hair and almost constant scowl, another fellow passenger and victim of indifferent time.
Behind them, Bruce was looking over readings, his huge green hand flicking switches and adjusting dials on the new Quantum Tunnel he and Scott had constructed. His other arm was strapped to his side. Burned. Shriveled. Crippled. Their previous Quantum Tunnel had been destroyed when Thanos and his minions had arrived aboard the Sanctuary II, piggy-backing on the time-heist the Avengers had set in motion. The Mad Titan had infiltrated an earlier version of Nebula into the time-heist team. He had captured the older one on Morag, Twenty-fourteen, then tortured her to learn about ten years of history yet to occur. Her companions had been unaware of the duplicity until it was too late.
The second Quantum Tunnel wasn’t as large as the first. Or as impressive. It wasn’t even the second. It was actually the fifth Quantum Tunnel. The first two had been made by Hank Pym. Tony Stark had added his own modifications to the design when he agreed to take part in the time-heist, and his version was much larger, more impressive. Showy. The last two were made using what Banner could reconstruct from memory, and the tattered blueprints that survived the third attack on Earth by Thanos. The fourth one had, well, suffered… small problems… and couldn’t be salvaged.
They couldn’t consult Tony on the project. His position and role in the team had changed a lot over the years. It was complicated. After the Twenty-eighteen incident, the latest in a long line of depressing events, Tony had indicated his unwillingness to participate in the efforts to undo what had been done by Thanos. It would be five long years before he changed his mind, and in typical Tony style, he had agreed under a set of terms that gave him absolute control.
Steve always suspected it was out of guilt. A burden few could bear. A harsh one for someone with the control issues of a billionaire playboy philanthropist, whose fortune was built on weapon designs and military contracts first started by an emotionally absent father. But while Tony may have projected blame onto Steve and a few others, he knew, deep down, a lot of it was his fault. In the end, their mission only succeeded because he agreed to help, because he sacrificed his life to make sure Thanos didn’t win.
Steve lifted his gaze. Focused on Bruce. He was still a combination of himself and the Hulk. Big and green but not like the original. His hair was greying, jawline covered in wiry stubble, and he was wearing spectacles. His mentality was that of Bruce rather than the over-sized child throwing tantrums, replacing the rage with that methodical focus his staggering intellect provided. His right arm was still bound to his chest, injured by the power and price incurred for the use of the Infinity Gauntlet, or rather the Infinity Stones it contained. He was distracting himself with the job.
Natasha hadn’t come back. At all. Only Barton returned from their mission to Vormir in Twenty-fourteen. Dejected. In shock. Angry. She’d died there. They’d been close. But Natasha and Bruce… that was complicated too. Memories played out in Steve’s mind, all the violence and sacrifices, the death, culminating in a victory that felt hollow, empty. Another loss. Doctor Strange had called it the endgame. It didn’t feel like a game. It was just a depressing collection of incidents that made no sense, left those who had invested so much along the way feeling angry and cheated.
But not in this version. In this version, Luis was telling the story while Dave and Kurt hung on almost every word he said. The other words rendered them almost unwilling companions on another one of his wild stories that too often went off script, and included details that were not exactly accurate, or may not have even happened at all. Some might call these embellishments, exaggerations added to help the narrative. That’s not what Hank called them. Hank mashed two words mashed together to indicate his thoughts on the value of what Luis said. It referred to cattle and fertilizer.
But as modern times have demonstrated, truth and fact are subjective, definitions flexible, the new normal where the integrity of words was watered down and undermined, used to convey claims based on the original intent despite the exact opposite being abundantly apparent. Words like genius, innocent, success, winning, great, fake, and victory. And right now, Luis was sharing his truth.
“Okay, okay, so check it out,” Luis said, launching into a verbal barrage, a voice-over that accompanied the images of his account and filled the minds of Kurt and Dave. “You know how Scotty is like, this super-secret agent that can make himself real small and really big and he’s tight with Captain America? Like, the first one. Steve Rogers. Not the flying guy he gave the shield to, or the one that had a cool robot arm but turned out was a badass Russian assassin over a hundred years old and everybody got angry about because nobody wants a Commie as Cap.”
“That offensive,” Kurt interjected, thick Russian accent disrupting the story and bringing it crashing back to reality.
Kurt and Luis were sitting at their desks in the office of X-Con Security Consultants, a business the three of them operated with Scott. It was currently experiencing a lull in demand, their services available but not required by others at this time, so Luis was filling it with his latest tall tale.
“He’s right,” Dave added, depositing a cup of coffee in front of Luis before handing one of the other two to Kurt. “Not cool, man. Mainstream’s all about not discriminating folks.”
“Right, right,” Luis agreed, grinning and nodding in an almost, yet not quite credible, apologetic way. “Sorry, Kurt. I didn’t mean you, bro, but that dude really was a Commie. He killed a whole bunch of people in the cold war. Like old man Stark and his lady.”
“So did pretty Russian girl who helped save world, and we forgive her,” Kurt responded. “Not everyone agree with what politicians order people do, you know.”
“I know, I know. Where was I? Oh, yeah,” Luis picked up his story where he left off, images of the final battle in the ruins of the Avengers facility on the Hudson. The fight between Tony Stark and Thanos in Twenty-twenty-three, a battle that filled the minds of his audience. “So Scotty says after Smart-Hulk got everyone back and Iron Man saved the day with the Infinity Gems –”
“Infinity Stones,” Dave’s voice interposed over visions filling Luis’s mind.
“That’s what I said,” Luis claimed, his story continuing. “Smart-Hulk gets them and brings back everyone Thanos killed, then Stark uses them to dust Thanos and his goons, but dies because he’s just human and not as strong as Hulk, who’s now crazy smart because he and Bruce Banner are like, merged, you know, into one guy.”
“Wasn’t this meant to be about Scotty?” Dave asked, interrupting, Luis’s internal replay suddenly stopping as his attention returned to the office.
“I’m getting there! I’m getting there! You can’t just jump into the middle! You gotta hear it from the start,” Luis explained as he wove his tale, mind filled with the scene in the woods by the Hudson, voice providing a narrative. “So Scotty says Smart Hulk, Cap, the flying guy, and Commie Cap – ”
“Still offensive,” Kurt added into the narrative
“– they, like, hang out in a forest with some kick ass time machine,” which all three imagine as the same one used in the Nineteen-sixty movie adaptation of the H.G.Wells story The Time Machine, “and then Smart Hulk, he says, “Bro… You have to put the Stones back where you got ’em, other-wise you’re gonna make your grandma fall in love with you and become your own grandad and that’s just nasty”.”
“This rendition sounds highly dubious,” Dave stated, his voice joining the narrative after Bruce Banner had said his piece with Luis’s voice.
“And Cap is all like,” Luis continued, ignoring Dave, ““Got it covered, man. Clip a few bad guys on the trip.” Then Smart Hulk, Cap and the flying guy talk about how bad the Stones are and how much they miss all the others. “That Gauntlet and those stones are bad news. It fried my arm and really hurt my back. I miss the Russian girl and Iron Man,” Smart Hulk says, and then Cap goes. “Me, too.” Then the super awesome flying guy is all, like, “You know I’ve got your back, bro, just say the word and I’ll come with.” But Cap is all like, “Not a good plan, Will-I-Am –”
“Pretty sure flying man is not famous musician,” Kurt observed, forcing a pause in Luis’s story.
A few hours earlier, when Scott was telling the Story to Luis, the same misunderstanding came up.
ᛊᛈᚨᚲᛖ
ᛏᛁᛗᛖ
ᛊᛟᚢᛚ
ᛈᛟᚹᛖᚱ
ᛗᛁᚾᛞ
ᚱᛖᚨᛚᛁᛏᛁ
“That’s not what… Will-I-Am? I said Sam,” Scott said, his expression unimpressed.
“Like in the Doctor Seuss book?” Luis asked.
“Or the fireman, or Yosemite,” Scott offered.
“Oh, the cartoon guy with the big red mustache and hat!” Luis looked excited, remembering the character from when he watched television as a child. And when he watched the repeats the day before. “I didn’t know he was a fireman.”
“No that’s not… They’re two different…” Luis gave him a blank look, so Scott gave up. “Yeah, there you go.”
“That’s lame, bro,” Luis said, shaking his head. “You should totally say it’s Will-I-Am! That’s much cooler.”
“Right,” Scott agreed, “I’m sure Sam would be fine with that.”
Luis beamed at him, clearly missing the sarcasm.
ᚱᛖᚨᛚᛁᛏᛁ ᛊᛈᚨᚲᛖ ᛏᛁᛗᛖ ᛊᛟᚢᛚ ᛈᛟᚹᛖᚱ ᛗᛁᚾᛞ
Back in the office, Luis continued with his version of the story, where Will-I-Am continued to play the role of Sam as Luis’s mind was filled with his imaginings. “And Steve goes over to Bucky and says, “This one’s gonna end bad, I just know.” And then Commie Cap –”
The story was interrupted again, this time by Kurt, who was tapping away at a laptop keyboard and leaning forward to look at the screen.
“His name James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes,” Kurt told Luis. “Was American soldier in World War Two. Sergeant. Was sidekick of Captain America.”
Dave leaned forward to read from the screen over Kurt’s shoulder. “No kidding. A sidekick. Hey, he’s just like us!” He and Kurt high-fived.
ᛊᛈᚨᚲᛖ
ᛏᛁᛗᛖ
ᛊᛟᚢᛚ
ᛈᛟᚹᛖᚱ
ᛗᛁᚾᛞ
ᚱᛖᚨᛚᛁᛏᛁ
Somewhere, miles away, Bucky was in his PJs, eating a bowl of cereal. Lucky Charms. All the temporal activity that had centered on recent moments in time had somehow created a convergence, allowing him to see and hear them at that very moment. He watched in horror, eyes wide, the spoon on the way to his mouth, now hanging open in an expression that would normally be interpreted as starting with ‘What the…’ and concluding with him putting coins in Steve’s swear-jar. He turned to look at whoever might be watching him, shut his mouth and pulled a face, shaking his head in denial, as if to indicate that Luis, Dave and Kurt were most definitely not like him.
ᚱᛖᚨᛚᛁᛏᛁ ᛊᛈᚨᚲᛖ ᛏᛁᛗᛖ ᛊᛟᚢᛚ ᛈᛟᚹᛖᚱ ᛗᛁᚾᛞ
Back in the office, Luis amended his story. “Oh, my bad. So Traitor Cap –”
“He brain-washed by bad guys. He good guy now,” Kurt explained.
“You know,” Dave suggested, “you could just use his name.”
“Okay, fine.” Luis conceded. “Kind of takes the whole dynamic tension and background narrative out of the story, though.” The images of his story return to the wooded area by the Hudson. “So Lucky –”
“Bucky!” Dave and Kurt said in unison, banishing the scene Luis was trying to create.
“Really? Why Bucky? Doesn’t really make sense,” Luis looked confused, completely missing the connection to the last name, then returned to his story, his characters acting out a close approximation of what they actually did in the original incident, only with Luis still doing their voices and reinterpreting what they’d said.
“Anyway,” Luis continued, “he says, “You’re an idiot and I know you’re not coming back.” But Cap isn’t having any of it. “I’m an idiot? Just for that, I’m not leaving my shield to you.””
In his mind, Luis imagined Steve and Bucky giving each other a bro-hug, then Bucky looking at Steve with squinting eyes. Anybody who had watched the actual incident unfold would have been surprised at the accuracy of the recreation, despite his adaptation of the dialogue exchanged and their accompanying mannerisms.
“And Bucky is thinkin’, like, “What shield, bro? Thanos smashed it and you don’t even have the bits with you.” But he’s got Rogers sussed and goes, “You’re gonna reconnect with your missus.” Coz he knows Steve isn’t coming back. And if he does, it won’t be for a long time. Totally sprung, Cap owns it and says, “Not sure I’m meant to stay, but,” and goes over to the Time Machine. Then Will-I-Am ruins the moment by asking, “How long is this gonna take?” And Smart Hulk is all, like, pushing the buttons and doing other science stuff, and tells them. “This is so whack. Check it. He could go hang out in the past for years if he wants, going from one time and place to another to get the job done, it doesn’t matter, because he’ll only be gone from here for, like, five seconds before he comes back.”
In Luis’s mind, at that moment in his story, Steve picks up Mjolnir, preparing to go.
“Wait,” Kurt interrupted from his desk, a confused look on his face, returning Luis’s mind to the office. “You need time-machine to get back to past and come back, but can go any-where-when during trip?”
“Yeah, that’s what Scotty said,” Luis nodded, grinning. “He said Cap and Iron Man did it when they went back to get the stones to bring everyone back. You remember the story about that.”
“That whole story have more holes than Osborn Tweet,” Kurt pointed out, frowning at the other two, “or story about X-Men Logan or Wade tell. Especially time machine. Why they need it at all?”
“Maybe it’s like a GPS so they don’t get lost in one of those other reality things,” Luis shrugged.
“That make no sense,” Kurt disagreed, explaining as the pair appeared unconcerned with the inconsistency. “Would need portable Universal Temporal Location System to exit Quantum Realm at desired where-when but would not work for return or detours, unless have Quantum Tunnel to get in start, and be beacon. And if unlimited realities, same math say some alternative ones just like ours, and they also have UTLS. How you know you in right one?”
Dave’s eyes got big. He tapped his forefinger on the side of his nose and pointed at Kurt while looking at Luis. “Oh, snap! Maybe they didn’t come back at all and we’re not us and the real us are still all dead or alone!”
Kurt looked at him like he was an idiot, so Dave turned to Luis for answers.
“Don’t look at me,” Luis responded to the expression on Dave’s face. “I don’t understand half of what Scotty says, and I didn’t understand any of what Kurt just said.”
He shrugged, grinned, then raised his hands to indicate his general and default setting of utter cluelessness.
“Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?” Luis asked.
Dave looked a little edgy.
“Sure, but can you hurry up,” he answered, “I’ve got a thing.”
“You’ll miss the fun stuff, but sure,” Luis answered, and jumped back in where he left off, the images in his mind happening in fast motion without any intelligible sounds as Luis did his voice-over. “Cap jumps in the time-machine, goes back in time…”
Luis told the story at such a rapid pace it was reduced to a series of images as his voice faded into the background. Steve disappeared into the Quantum portal… then he was in chains being marched up the steps of the New York City Court House by the police. There were more police and a group of SHIELD Agents trying to hold the crowd back as they fought amongst themselves or threw rotten fruit and vegetables at Steve. There was shot and Steve fell forward, hit in the back by a sniper. He died on the steps as Sharon Carter screamed for help as she held his hand… then Iron Man appeared, wearing his Infinity Gauntlet containing all the Stones, fighting with Nebula. She was behind him with one arm under his and wrapped around his chest, the other on the Infinity Gauntlet, her legs wrapped around him. Iron Man was screaming in pain as the energy from the Infinity Stones coursed through him.
“My dad has to come back!” Luis said, his voice coming from Nebula’s mouth. “He has to do this! You know what will happen if he doesn’t! One way or another, this is going to happen!”
The fingers of her cybernetic hand extended and meshed into the joints of the Infinity Gauntlet. The Nebula from the past had used the same trick to link with the Quantum Tunnel, allowing Thanos and the Sanctuary II to jump nine years into the future for the battle with Avengers on Earth in Twenty-twenty-three. The power of the Infinity Gauntlet surged into her. She started screaming in pain as the power of the Infinity Stones coursed into her as well.
She and Iron Man both screamed.
Nebula got that focused look. The fingers of the Infinity Gauntlet snapped.
The Sanctuary II and several other spacecraft that served Thanos appeared overhead.
Chitauri and Kree landing craft began to fall from the sky onto the planet.
Thanos teleported to the surface of that world with his Cull Obsidian. Ebony Maw, his cruel eyes and spiteful leer more disturbing against grey skin and otherwise featureless face. Corvus Glaive, the wraith of similar shade with sharp teeth and the leer of a predator on a riverbank, ragged cloak and that vicious spear of barbed blades. Proxima Midnight, a banshee with a soul so malicious and ugly it lent the same aspect to her physical appearance. And Black Dwarf, that massive brute creature of limited intellect and self-control, the lack of which was compensated for by colossal strength. The very appearance of the most terrifying interpretation of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Iron Man and Nebula were sprawled on the ground. She was partly beneath him, limbs wrapped around him from their struggle. Both were burned by the flashback from the Stones, their eyes closed. They appeared to be dead, and the Infinity Gauntlet was also burned, shattered, smoking. The setting faded behind clouds of dust and smoke as invaders serving Thanos descended upon the world.
“Wait! What?! Thanos is back?!” Dave demanded, his expression a mixture of confusion and concern. “How…?! Why…?! You skipped over something! What happened in between all that?!”
“Thought you were too busy to hear the whole story,” Luis said.
Kurt nodded at Luis and told Dave what Dave warned others about when their friend shared his stories.
“You put dime in,” he said, “you listen whole song.”
Kurt turned on the radio as he tuned out the noise of Luis and Dave arguing until Luis agreed to tell the whole story. One Headlight, by The Wallflowers, Nineteen-ninety-six, started to play as Kurt remembered the second-hand stories Scott told him about the Avengers. These were a good deal more accurate than the ones Luis shared. He just hoped this one was better than the last one Scott had told.
That story had been a depressing, poorly constructed way to end what had captured the attention of people like him. It felt like a betrayal for an audience that had invested so much in the lives they heard about, shared their journey. Just another repeat of ones he had heard about the X-Men, the author of whatever tale was told using the worn-out, unproven, unfeasible theories concerning paradoxes caused by time travel, used to kill off both characters and interest in what had been something popular.
Scott claimed the last two of his stories were the end of the Avengers. Well, until a new team was assembled, one that would replace them. With younger members to appeal to a new audience. Characters that would replace the ones so callously discarded because they were considered old, no longer in their teens or early twenties. It was a scathing indictment of the attitudes that propped up the throw away culture of modern society, one that devalued and discarded some people to pander to the narcissism and sociopathic personalities of a minority. What little hope Scott’s last two stories contained felt heavy handed, tacked on, and didn’t really make any sense without additional, post-story details which, it turned out, simply doubled-down on the what was a barely comprehensible mess. The only happy place left was in the past, the mess in the future now a problem for someone else. Kurt and Dave liked the earlier stories better, like the ones Scott told about himself, or the adventures of Peter Quill and his companions, or Thor and his Revengers.
Kurt smiled at the memory, but then his mind returned to the Avengers. It lingered on the tragedy of Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter, her grandniece Sharon, and the one known as Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff. The unseen romantic part of his soul captured by the cruel fate of their stories.
Steve’s driving hunger and need to make things right.
Peggy’s unending grief, loss and broken heart, carrying his memory her whole life, only to reconnect and lose him again every time he visited her in the nursing home.
Sharon and the unexpected love that grew between her and Steve, a third corner in a love triangle that would never have existed if Tony Stark hadn’t discovered a way to travel through time.
Natasha, another victim of time and her efforts to atone, to find acceptance and a family, love, things she never had, could never have, and struggled to understand.
Four lost souls, cut off from the world everyone else was living in, trying to be normal, thrown together by destiny, and forever changing one another’s lives.
The lyrics began to play as he remembered the moments between Steve and Natasha. Her longing looks, the banter, smiles, jests, the two of them in a stolen pickup truck.
So long ago, I don’t remember when,
That’s when they say I lost my only friend.
Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease,
As I listened through the cemetery trees…
